I will never forget the first time I attended a therapy group with other divorced women dealing with Betrayal Trauma. A few told their stories to help me feel welcome and safe. As I shared my story I started by stating my marriage had not been an abusive one because he never yelled at me and only supported me. I went on to explain my life of recent discoveries and years of lies and manipulation of truth. Before I could even finish the therapist stopped me and pointed out several ways I was in fact in an abusive relationship. In detail she pointed out several ways I was emotionally abused for years and the examples made me physically react.
The new truth of the deception and how calculating it was intentionally or not to protect his addiction stuck the dagger in my heart just a little deeper. This was the first time I had heard of DARVO.
We never fought, unless I went to him with a concern. There wasn’t a lot of communication with him including that he never had a problem with me…that was until I would go to him with a worry. Somehow I would go from asking him for more help because I was feeling very overwhelmed to walking away from the conversation as the “offender” as if I had attacked him. In those instances I was told how unthankful I was for how hard he worked and I didn’t value him as a father and husband. How I didn’t see all that he did around the house or for the kids and me. He was bothered I didn’t know the finances and accused me of thinking money just grew on trees. So after I walked away I asked him less questions about how much he traveled for work. I didn’t ask for help around the house and tried to make an extra effort to compliment him on what little I saw. I found new ways to save us money and spend less.
The truth was he was not just traveling for work. He was gone so much not making sacrifices for the kids and me but to spend time with other girls and for himself. He wasn’t helping around the house but instead giving more and more responsibility to me. He was spending mind blowing amounts of money on sex, women and himself AND knew he was doing all this allowing me to believe it was my fault. Now that is abuse! Let’s just say I took a big nap that day.
I feel it is so important to become aware of the abusive behaviors. I am often asked “Did you really not know he was a sex addict?” I have now embraced that I trusted him that fiercely and somehow even when his words didn’t make sense, I made sure they fit in what I believed would be true…and at the time there was no comprehension of the person I thought he was that he could be any addict, let alone a sex addict.
I often have to remind myself to be gentle to my past self because then I didn’t know and was doing the best I could with what information I had been presented at the time. I can’t judge how I reacted with what I knew then by the information I have about the truth of the situation now. I wasn’t stupid or oblivious. I fought for my family and my marriage and I believed he was doing the same. I believed what was told to me. That’s why the truth of the emotional abuse hurts so deeply because the person I trusted the most that was saying “I love you” was proactively and purposely deceiving and hurting me instead.